Lahaina, Maui HI - Front Street Opens... 3 Years after the Fire

Aloha everyone. Today I'm back in Lahaina town and I'm standing on a stretch of Front Street that has been closed since the fire. Well today they just had the official blessing of this area after they got done fixing up some of the infrastructure. So while I'm here I figured I'd give you a quick tour. So we're going to be heading south along Front Street but before we get too far I just want to give you your bearings. Of course you see the West Maui Mountains. There's the Pioneer Mill smokestack. That is the intersection of Front Street and Dickinson. This is looking north on Front Street off in the distance. It's kind of hard to see with the sun in the way but you can see a baby beach from here. And that building right there is where the theater was and the Foodland grocery store. Okay let's go for a walk. You'll notice that they did re-pour the sidewalks. New trash cans, benches. It's nice to see that they planted trees already. New street lights. This railing is new and I believe they widened the sidewalk. It's actually cantilevers over the edge so it's a wider sidewalk now. Okay we're coming up on what I've been calling the Fleetwood building but everybody corrects me it's the Lahaina store. So it is a historic building called the Lahaina store. A lot of people call it the Fleetwood building because that's where Fleetwood's restaurant was at the time of the fire. Oh there's a rainbow. Lots of rainbows lately in Lahaina. Straight ahead here you can see the harbor and like I said they had the official blessing of this area earlier today. I was here for that but I just didn't feel like it was appropriate to be recording at that time. So I came back after most of the people had left just to make sure nobody got caught on camera. The sign on the way in said that this area closes promptly at six o'clock so I still have another 15 minutes or so. I wanted to mention that they obviously they repaved the street here as well. That's relatively new. I've been watching the sidewalk get repoured for quite a while but the repaving I think happened just in the last week or so. It's the Maria Lainakilam Catholic Church. You can see the steeple there and I gotta show off the Lahaina Luna L. So let me show you what I mean about the widening of the sidewalk. You can kind of see the cantilevers over the edge. I don't think that's how it was before. I think that's new. So that's where the sidewalk ends so far. Of course we have these storefronts that are still standing here on the ocean side. I'll be really curious to see what happens with those. Some historic buildings across the street. I know Lahaina Restoration is working on fixing up a lot of the historic buildings whatever is remaining. I'm going to walk you through the parking lot here too. So this is a paid parking lot and one thing that I do like to see is that on their paid parking lot signs they say that the proceeds go to Lahaina Restoration. So I know a lot of people try to get away without paying for their parking but this is one place that I'm actually happy to make that payment. I think that was the Baldwin House. So this area has been open up for quite a while. I did do a video of the harbor and the banyan tree I don't know maybe three or four months ago maybe even more when it first opened up. But since I'm here we might as well just go take a look at that area as well. It's the banyan tree. Straight ahead is where I believe that's where the library was prior to the fire. It's hard to see but with the sun. But that's where we just came from. See this is where they have access to the beach for surfing. This empty lot here is where the Pioneer Inn was and then this this area straight here is where the Wharf Cinema Center was before the fire. They had Cool Cats Cafe and Captain Jack's and Down the Hatch and a bunch of other shops and restaurants and of course the theater. And there's the banyan tree. I've done quite a few videos of flyovers and one or two driving by it's always nice to come back and see that it's still growing and still nice and green. Of course the harbor has been open to limited commercial activity for quite a while. I actually see a sailboat pulling out right now. It's the old Lahaina Courthouse. I'll walk up next to the harbor here. They're also actively working on dredging the harbor right now. I think it's a project that they wanted to do for a long time but they're just now taking advantage of the fact that you know there's no boats in here other than just a few commercial boats. So hopefully that means that they're getting close to opening up the harbor for everybody. There you can see some of the equipment that they have for the dredging project. There you have it the old Lahaina Courthouse. Sign says it was built in 1858. And then the coral block wall here is another historic site. I think that was the original fort that was here or a reconstruction of it anyways. Now off in the distance you can see the Lahaina Shores condominium complex and across the street here is where the King Kamehameha schools was prior to the fire. The park the Banyan Tree Park is still closed. As you can see you can walk all the way around it. You can drive around it too but it's still fenced off underneath the tree I suppose for safety reasons. So you can come see the tree but you can't go touch it. Okay we're almost back to Front Street. This is the corner of Front Street and Canal Street. So that was the quick walking tour of Front Street and the area that was just blessed and opened up today. While there's no businesses or commercial buildings being built right now at least we're seeing some progress with the sidewalks the road and a lot of the infrastructure. That's all I have for you in this video. If you appreciate these updates of Lahainatown don't forget to subscribe for more in the future. Hit the like button for me and share this video with anyone else you know who wants to know what's really happening here in Lahaina. I hope to see you on the next video. Aloha.